A Sinatra Songfest for Medical Center

They’re working as a team to help abused children. For the past three years Barbara Sinatra has been devoting as much time as she can to raising money for the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. Her husband, Frank Sinatra, who’s also known as Ol’ Blue Eyes, helps the best way he can--by singing. And between them they’re making such fast progress that the new center is expected to be operational sometime next year.

Sinatra will be singing in concert for his wife and the center Nov. 30 at Marriott’s Rancho Las Palmas Resort. The tickets for the songfest, dinner and dancing are a solid $1,250 per person. Benefactor/Golden Circle tables for 10 are going for $25,000. The honorary co-chairs are former Ambassador and Mrs. Walter Annenberg. Allan Paulson, a prince of a fellow, is picking up the tab for the whole affair.

Barbara Sinatra has been a big supporter of the Coachella Valley program for the treatment of sexually and physically abused children and for their families. “We’ve been very successful with the treatment,” she says. “We’ve had no repeats.” When the center is completed, the program will have a handsome new home in a 12,000-square-foot facility on land donated by the Eisenhower Center. Through a clever fund-raising scheme, generous individuals have been encouraged to pay for each room in the center. “The architect’s drawings are ready,” Mrs. Sinatra adds. “And we’ve had some wonderful backing. My husband has bought one room and the Hopes (Dolores and Bob), the Annenbergs, Laurance Rockefeller, Gene Autry bought others. We have only two rooms left to go.” In the center, she continues, “we plan to do research, work closely with the police and judges, with the families.”

The center’s 1985 benefit has a carrousel theme and a dinner committee headed by Ardith Marguleas and James R. Greenbaum. More on the committee are Mimi Albert, Gene House, Mary Jane Jenkins, Katie Juvonen, Barbara Kaplan, Bevereley Lewis, Nelda Linsk and John Shields, who is in charge of Eisenhower’s psychiatric department.

December has always been a big party month in Los Angeles. But ever since Ronnie and Nancy headed for the White House and some of their friends accepted important posts away from home, December has become welcome-back time.

The director of the U.S. Information Agency, Charles Wick, and his wife, Mary Jane Wick, have Christmas dinner at the White House, then catch a plane and head for Los Angeles where the welcoming committee is on the ready.

Ambassador to Belgium Geoffrey Swaebe and his wife, Mary, have entertained oodles of Angelenos at their Brussels residence. (The reports are that the food and service are incomparable.) Naturally everyone wants to reciprocate. The Swaebes are staying with the Virginia and Jerry Oppenheimer during their three-weeks home leave. Dee and Stuart Cramer are taking over the Bistro Garden Pavilion for one fancy dinner. Jayne and Henry Berger, who know the Swaebes love movies, are inviting them and some chums for a movie, hot dogs and hamburgers. Juli and Herbert Hutner are planning some sort of entertainment, but at the moment haven’t decided what form it will take.

Ambassador to the Vatican and Mrs. William A. Wilson will be on home leave attending, as always, one party after another. Among them will be the one Audrey (Meadows) and Robert Six give for them at their home Dec. 17.

Lily Chen, former mayor of Monterey Park and a member of the City Council, will receive the Distinguished Community Service Award from the Pacific Southwest Region of the Anti-Defamation League today. Henry Hwang, Sophie Chao Wong and Carole Summer Krechman chair the dinner at the Ambassador Hotel, and Sheriff Sherman Block is the keynote speaker.

Love Notes: Bob and Rosemarie Stack’s daughter Elizabeth Marie, the actress, married David Richard Fletcher of Los Angeles and Australia, at her parents’ home Sunday. The wedding reception was held at the Bel-Air Hotel. The newlyweds plan to divide their time between Los Angeles, London and Australia.

Social Backtracking: The Juniors of the Social Service Auxiliary are whooping it up for the auxiliary’s 50th anniversary--all year. Last month the celebrating was done at the Juniors’ annual fashion show at the Beverly Wilshire where Ruben Panis paraded his winter-holiday collection of elegant gowns, Jef’s an Affair with Flowers incorporated the auxiliary’s gold bird into his pink tulip, rubrum lily and pink rose centerpieces, and Rodel Naval, a Filipino actor-singer, did a little warbling before the fashion show began. Mrs. Eugene R. Casagrande and Mrs. Jon Green co-chaired the festive event, which honored the auxiliary’s board and Associate and Bridging members. Mention was made of the Auxiliary’s Candlelight Ball, which takes place next month and raises money for Regis House, a West Los Angeles community center. And among those attending were Josephine Wayne, her daughter-in-law Gretchen Wayne and her granddaughter Alicia MacFarlan.

Mr. and Mrs. Giovanni Bolla (he’s the talented caterer) invited friends to a brunch at the Liberace estate after their daughter Cira Felina Sarah’s bat mitzvah at Temple Beth Am.

The Brandeis University National Women’s Committee honored six very creative people at its sixth annual Author and Celebrity Luncheon held at the Beverly Wilshire. Discussing writing and other momentous undertakings on a panel moderated by Digby Diehl were Irving Stone, Jacqueline Briskin, Ray Bradbury, Dr. William Glasser and Esther Shapiro, executive producer of “Dynasty.”

The board of trustees of the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage had Jackie and Gene Autry as their special guests when they dedicated the Autry Tower with a black-tie dinner-dance in the center’s Annenberg Center for Health Sciences.

The Southern California Affiliate of the American Diabetes Assn. reports it raised more than $110,000 at September’s “Great Catalogue Caper” at Neiman-Marcus.